<p> To underworld kingpins Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Cuba was the greatest hope for the future of American organized crime in the post-Prohibition years. In the 1950s, the Mob&#8212;with the corrupt, repressive government of brutal Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in its pocket&#8212;owned Havana's biggest luxury hotels and casinos, launching an unprecedented tourism boom complete with the most lavish entertainment, top-drawer celebrities, gorgeous women, and gambling galore. But Mob dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and others who would lead an uprising of the country's disenfranchised against Batista's hated government and its foreign partners&#8212;an epic cultural battle that bestselling author T. J. English captures here in all its sexy, decadent, ugly glory. </p>